The Troubled Man (2011) kw-10

by Henning Mankell

  He realised he would have to go back to the beginning. But the beginning of what?

  He stood in the middle of the living room for a long time, trying to understand. But he couldn’t think of anything that would further his understanding of the case.

  He was surrounded by silence. At submarine depth, where the restless movement of the ocean was undetectable.

  12

  Wallander spent the night in the empty apartment.

  Because it was warm, almost oppressively so, he left some windows ajar and watched the thin curtains swaying gently. He could occasionally hear people shouting in the street below. Wallander had the feeling that he was listening to phantoms, as you always do in recently vacated houses or apartments. But it wasn’t to save the cost of a hotel room that he had asked Linda for the keys to the apartment. Wallander knew from experience that first impressions are often the most important ones in a criminal investigation. A return visit rarely produces anything new. But this time he knew what he was looking for.

  Wallander tiptoed around in his socks to avoid making the neighbours suspicious. He went through Hakan’s study and Louise’s two chests of drawers. He also searched the big bookcase in the living room, and any cupboards and shelves he could find. By about ten o’clock, when he slipped cautiously out of the apartment to find somewhere to eat, he was as sure as he could be. All trace of the handicapped daughter had been carefully removed.

  Wallander ate at what claimed to be a Hungarian restaurant, despite the fact that all the waiters and other staff in the open-plan kitchen spoke Italian. As he returned to the second-floor apartment in the slow-moving lift, he wondered where he should sleep. There was a sofa in Hakan’s study, but he eventually lay down under a tartan blanket on a couch in the living room, where he had drunk tea with Louise.

  He was woken up at about one by a particularly noisy group of merrymakers, and as he lay in the dark room, he was suddenly wide awake. It was absurd for there to be absolutely nothing at all in the apartment to mark the existence of the woman who was now living at Niklasgarden. It almost made him physically ill not to find any pictures or even documents, the bureaucratic identification indicators that surround all Swedes from birth. He got up and tiptoed around once more. He was carrying a penlight, and he occasionally used it to illuminate the darkest corners. He avoided turning on more than a single lamp here and there in case someone in the apartment building across the street might react, but at the same time he also thought of the lamps that Hakan von Enke always used to leave burning all night. Wasn’t the invisible line between reality and lies in the von Enke family unusually easy to cross? He stood in the middle of the kitchen and thought it over yet again. Then he carried on indefatigably, becoming the bloodhound he could sometimes arouse within himself, and resolved not to allow it to rest until it picked up the trail of Signe; it had to be here somewhere.

  He succeeded at about four in the morning. In the bookcase, hidden behind some big art books, he found a photo album. It did not contain many pictures, but they were carefully mounted, most of them in faded colour, a few in black and white. There was no written commentary, only pictures. There was no picture of the two siblings together, but then he hadn’t expected to find one. When Hans was born, Signe had already vanished, been whisked away, rubbed out. Wallander counted less than fifty photos. Signe was alone in most of them, lying in various positions. But in the last picture Louise was holding her, looking away from the camera. Wallander felt sad to note that the picture made it clear that Louise would have preferred not to have to sit there, holding the child in her arms. The photograph exuded an atmosphere of intense desolation. Wallander shook his head, feeling very uncomfortable.

  He lay down on the sofa again. He was exhausted but also relieved, and he fell asleep immediately. He woke up with a start at about eight o’clock when a car in the street below sounded its horn loudly. He had been dreaming about horses. A herd had come galloping over the sand dunes at Mossby and raced straight into the water. He tried to figure out what the dream meant, but he failed. It hardly ever worked; he had no idea how to do it. He ran a bath, drank some coffee and called Ytterberg at about nine. He was in a meeting. Wallander asked the receptionist to pass on a message and received a text in response saying that Ytterberg could meet him at ten thirty at city hall, on the side overlooking the water. Wallander was waiting there when Ytterberg arrived on his bicycle. There was a cafe nearby, and before long they were sitting at a table, each with a cup of coffee.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ asked Ytterberg. ‘I thought you preferred little towns or rural areas.’

  ‘I do. But sometimes you have no choice.’

  Wallander told him about Signe. Ytterberg listened intently without interrupting. Wallander finished by mentioning the photo album he had discovered during the night. He had brought it with him in a plastic bag, and he placed it on the table. Ytterberg slid his coffee cup to one side, wiped his hands on a paper napkin and leafed carefully through the album.

  ‘How old is she now?’ he asked. ‘About forty?’

  ‘Yes, if I understood Atkins correctly.’

  ‘There aren’t any pictures of her in here after the age of two, or three at the most.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Wallander. ‘Unless there’s another album. But I don’t think so. After the age of two she’s been expunged.’

  Ytterberg pulled a face and carefully slid the album back into the plastic bag. A white-painted passenger boat chugged past along Riddarfjarden. Wallander moved his chair into the shade.

  ‘I thought of going back to Niklasgarden,’ Wallander said. ‘After all, I’m now a member of this girl’s family. But I need the go-ahead from you. You should be aware of what I’m doing.’

  ‘What good do you think it would do, meeting her?’

  ‘I don’t know. But her father visited her the day before he disappeared. And she hasn’t had any visitors since then.’

  Ytterberg thought for a while before replying.

  ‘It’s remarkable that Louise hasn’t been to see her the entire time since he disappeared. What do you make of that?’

  ‘I don’t make anything of it. But I wonder just as much as you do. Maybe we should go there together?’

  ‘No, you go on your own. I’ll give them a call and tell them you have the right to see her.’

  Wallander walked down to the edge of the quay and gazed out over the water while Ytterberg made his call. The sun was high in the clear blue sky. It’s full summer now, he thought. After a while Ytterberg came and stood beside him.

  ‘All set,’ he said. ‘But there’s something you should know. The woman I spoke to said that Signe von Enke doesn’t speak. Not because she doesn’t want to, but because she can’t. I don’t know if I understood everything correctly, but she seems to have been born without vocal cords. Among other things.’

  Wallander turned to look at him.

  ‘Among other things?’

  ‘She’s evidently extremely handicapped. Lots of essential parts are missing. I have to say I’m glad it’s not me going there. Especially not today.’

  ‘What’s special about today?’

  ‘It’s such lovely weather,’ said Ytterberg. ‘One of the first summer days this year. I’d rather not be upset if I can avoid it.’

  ‘Did she speak with a foreign accent?’ Wallander asked as they walked away from the quay. ‘The woman at Niklasgarden, I mean.’

  ‘Yes, she did. She had a lovely voice. She said her name was Fatima. I would guess she’s from Iraq or Iran.’

  Wallander promised to get in touch later that day. He had parked outside the main entrance to city hall, and he just managed to drive off before an alert parking attendant turned up. He drove out of town and pulled up outside Niklasgarden about an hour later. When he entered the reception area he was received by an elderly man who introduced himself as Artur Kallberg - he was on duty in the afternoons until midnight.

  ‘Let’s start at the beginni
ng,’ Wallander said. ‘Tell me about Signe’s condition.’

  ‘She’s one of our most severely affected patients,’ Artur Kallberg informed him. ‘When she was born, nobody thought she would live very long. But some people have a will to live that few ordinary mortals can begin to comprehend.’

  ‘Can you be more precise?’ Wallander asked. ‘What exactly is wrong with her?’

  Kallberg hesitated before answering, as if weighing whether Wallander would be able to cope with hearing all the facts; or possibly if he was worthy of hearing the full truth. Wallander became impatient.

  ‘I’m listening,’ he said.

  ‘She’s missing both arms. And there’s something wrong with her vocal cords, which means that she can’t talk, plus congenital brain damage. She also has a malformation of the spine. That means her movements are incredibly limited.’

  ‘Meaning what, exactly?’

  ‘She has a small amount of mobility in her neck and head. For instance, she can blink.’

  Wallander tried to envisage the horrific possibility that Linda might have given birth to a child with such severe disabilities. How would he have reacted? Could he imagine what this tragedy must have meant for Hakan and Louise? Wallander was unable to decide how he would have coped with it.

  ‘How long has she been here?’ he asked.

  ‘During the early years of her life she was cared for in a home for severely handicapped children,’ said Kallberg. ‘It was on Lidingo, but it closed in 1972.’

  Wallander raised his hand.

  ‘Let’s be exact,’ he said. ‘Assume that the only thing I know about this girl is her name.’

  ‘Then perhaps we should stop calling her a girl,’ said Kallberg. ‘She’s about to turn forty-one years old. Guess when.’

  ‘How on earth should I know?’

  ‘It’s her birthday today. Under normal circumstances, her father would have come and spent the afternoon here with us. But as things stand, no one is coming.’

  Kallberg seemed troubled by the thought that Signe von Enke might be forced to endure a birthday without a visit.

  One question was more important than any other, but Wallander decided to wait and do everything in order. He took his battered notebook out of his pocket.

  ‘So,’ said Wallander, ‘she was born on 6 June 1967, is that right?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘Did she ever spend any time at home with her parents?’

  ‘According to the case notes I’ve been through, she was taken directly from the hospital to the Nyhaga home on Lidingo. When it became necessary to expand the home, the neighbours were scared that their properties would go down in value. I don’t know exactly what they did in order to put a wrench in the works, but they not only prevented the expansion, they managed to get the home closed down completely.’

  ‘So where was she transferred?’

  ‘She ended up on a sort of nursing-home merry-go-round. She went from one place to another, and spent a year in a home on Gotland, just outside Hemse. But she came here twenty-nine years ago, and she’s been here ever since.’

  Wallander noted it all down. The image of Klara without any arms kept cropping up in his mind’s eye with macabre obstinacy.

  ‘Tell me about her capabilities,’ Wallander said. ‘You’ve done that already to an extent, but I’m thinking about how much she understands. Just how much is she aware of?’

  ‘We don’t know. She only expresses herself by means of basic reactions, and even that is done via body language that can be hard to interpret for anyone who isn’t used to her. We regard her as a sort of infant with a long experience of life.’

  ‘Is it possible to figure out what she’s thinking?’

  ‘No. But nothing suggests that she’s aware of how great her suffering is. She never gives any indication of pain or despair. And if that is a reflection of the facts, it’s obviously something we can be grateful for.’

  Wallander nodded. He thought he understood. But now he was ready to ask the most important question.

  ‘Her father came to visit her,’ he said. ‘How often?’

  ‘At least once a month. Sometimes more. They weren’t short visits - he never stayed for less than several hours.’

  ‘What did he do? If they couldn’t talk?’

  ‘She can’t talk. He sat there and talked to her. It was very moving. He would sit there and tell her about everything, about everyday things, about life in their own little world and also in the world at large. He spoke to her just as you would speak to another adult, without ever tiring.’

  ‘What about when he was at sea? For many years he was in charge of submarines and other naval vessels.’

  ‘He would always explain that he was going to be away. It was touching to hear him telling her all about it.’

  ‘And who came to visit Signe when he was away? Her mother?’

  Kallberg’s answer was clear and cold, and it came without hesitation.

  ‘She has never been here. I’ve been working at Niklasgarden since 1994. She has never been to visit her daughter during that time. The only visitor Signe ever had was her father.’

  ‘Are you saying that Louise never came here to see her daughter?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Surely that must be unusual?’

  Kallberg shrugged.

  ‘Not necessarily. Some people simply can’t cope with the sight of suffering.’

  Wallander put his notebook back in his pocket. He wondered if he would be able to interpret what he had scribbled down.

  ‘I’d like to see her,’ he said. ‘Assuming that wouldn’t upset her, of course.’

  ‘There’s something I forgot to mention,’ said Kallberg. ‘She sees very badly. She perceives people as a sort of blur against a grey background. At least, that’s what the doctors say.’

  ‘So she recognised her father by his voice?’ Wallander wondered.

  ‘Presumably, yes. That seemed to be the case, judging by her body language.’

  Wallander stood up, but Kallberg remained seated.

  ‘Are you absolutely certain you want to see her?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Wallander. ‘I’m absolutely certain.’

  That wasn’t true, of course. What he really wanted to see was her room.

  They went out through the glass doors, which closed silently behind them. Kallberg opened the door to a room at the end of a hallway. It was a bright room with a plastic mat on the floor. It held a couple of chairs, a bookcase and a bed, on which Signe von Enke lay hunched up.

  ‘Leave me alone with her,’ Wallander requested. ‘Wait outside.’

  After Kallberg left, Wallander took a quick look around the room. Why is there a bookcase here when the occupant is blind and unaware of what is going on around her? He took a step closer to the bed and looked at Signe. She had fair, short-cropped hair and looked a bit like Hans, her brother. Her eyes were open but staring vacantly out into the room. She was breathing irregularly, as if every breath caused her pain. Wallander felt a lump in his throat. Why did a human being have to suffer like this? With no hope of a life with even an illusory glimmer of meaning? He continued looking at her, but she seemed unaware of his presence. Time stood still. He was in a strange museum, he thought, a place where he was forced to look at an immured person. The girl in the tower. Immured inside herself.

  He looked at the chair next to the window. The chair Hakan von Enke usually sat in when he visited his daughter. He moved over to the bookcase and squatted down. There were children’s books, picture books. Signe von Enke had not developed at all; she was still a child. Wallander went carefully through the bookcase, taking out books and making sure there was nothing hidden behind them.

  He found what he was looking for behind a row of Babar the Elephant books. Not a photo album this time, but then he hadn’t expected to find that. He hadn’t been at all sure of what exactly he was looking for, but there was something missing from the apartment in Grevgatan, he
was convinced of that. Either somebody had weeded out documents, or Hakan had done it himself. And if it had been him, where could he have hidden something but in this room? Behind the Babar books, which he and Linda had both read when they were children, was a thick file with hard black covers, held closed by two thick rubber bands. Wallander hesitated: should he open it here and now? Instead he slipped off his jacket and fit the book into the capacious inside pocket. Signe was still lying there with her eyes open wide, motionless.

  Wallander opened the door. Kallberg was poking a finger into the soil of a pot plant that badly needed watering.

  ‘It’s very sad,’ said Wallander. ‘Just looking at her makes me break into a cold sweat.’

  They went back to reception.

  ‘A few years ago we had a visit from a young art-school student,’ said Kallberg. ‘Her brother lived here, but he’s dead now. She asked permission to sketch the patients. She was very good - she had brought drawings with her to show what she could do. I was in favour of it, but the board of trustees decided it would be a breach of the patients’ privacy.’

  ‘What happens when a patient dies?’

  ‘Most of them have a family. But one or two are buried quietly with no family present. On such occasions as many of us as possible try to attend. There’s not a lot of turnover among the staff here. We become a sort of new family for patients like that.’

  After taking his leave, Wallander drove to Mariefred and had a meal in a pizzeria. There were a few tables on the pavement, and he sat outside over a cup of coffee after he had finished eating. Thunderclouds were building up on the horizon. A man was playing an accordion in front of a little shop not far away. His music was hopelessly out of tune - he was obviously a beggar, not a street musician. When Wallander couldn’t put up with it any more, he drained his coffee and returned to Stockholm. He had just stepped in through the door of the apartment in Grevgatan when the phone rang. The ringing echoed through the empty rooms. Nobody left a message on the answering machine. Wallander listened to the earlier messages, from a dentist and a seamstress. Louise had been given a new appointment after a canmobileation - but when was that? Wallander noted the dentist’s name: Skoldin. The seamstress simply said, ‘Your dress is ready.’ But she left no name, no time.